Salman Khan Moves Court; Delhi HC Directs Platforms to Act on Personality Rights Violation
The Delhi High Court in Salman Khan v Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors has directed social media platforms and online intermediaries to take action on a complaint filed by Bollywood actor Salman Khan, who alleged that several entities were misusing his name, photos and other personality traits to sell commercial merchandise without permission.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said the Court would itself issue stay orders against those using Khan’s identity to promote or sell products. She also instructed some of the defendants to treat Khan’s complaint as a formal notice under the IT Intermediary Rules and act on it within three days.
The judge further noted that one of the defendants, accused of trademark violation, must consider Khan’s intellectual property rights before taking any decision.
Khan approached the Court seeking directions against multiple known and unknown parties (including ‘John Doe’ defendants) to prevent unauthorised use of his personality rights. His senior counsel, Sandeep Sethi, informed the Court that Apple, an AI chatbot, certain e-marketplaces and the platform RedBubble had allowed content that infringed the actor’s identity.
He also raised concerns about fan pages using photoshopped images of Khan. When the Court asked why this was an issue, Sethi responded that Khan’s image and name are registered trademarks, and altered photos posted without consent amount to misuse.
The Court, however, observed that the images shown were neither obscene nor inappropriate. Sethi maintained that the concern was consent and authenticity, not obscenity.
The Court also questioned an intermediary about what procedure it follows when someone flags a violation of personality rights through unapproved merchandise sold on its platform. The intermediary stated that the links in question had already been deactivated, and that they generally act on orders even though they do not have a fixed policy.
Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi appeared for Khan along with advocates Nizam Pasha and Shreya Sethia. The legal team was briefed by Parag Khandhar, Chandrima Mitra, Tapan Radkar, Zara Dhanbhoora, Krishan Kumar and Siddharth Kaushik of DSK Legal.
